


Indiscretions

by ChartreuseChanteuse



Series: Crimes and Offenses [1]
Category: The Dukes of Hazzard (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-01-30 03:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21421516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChartreuseChanteuse/pseuds/ChartreuseChanteuse
Summary: Luke is good at things.  Bo wants to be good at things, too.
Relationships: Bo Duke/Luke Duke
Series: Crimes and Offenses [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544287
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I walked away from Dukes to write originals. Two years later, those originals are as stalled as a drowned police cruiser, so I went back to this idea that I started nigh on 4 years back. It was originally supposed to be a series, and it may yet be. For now, I am just happy to be writing again at all.

**Summer 1968**

“What about Mary Pat?” Bo asks, then figures maybe it was one of those dumb questions. The kind he always seems to be asking, even if they seem like perfectly regular questions until those bright blue eyes get rolled at him.

“What about her?” Luke’s eyes, lighter than the sky, prettier than a girl’s. They sure as heck don’t belong in the middle of that face, scrunched up in its usual ugly scowl. 

Luke’s good at things. He can throw harder than anyone else in school and run faster than most. His brain’s pretty quick, too, though Uncle Jesse always says that you’d never know it from his grades. He can track game without hardly trying and keep his cool when the hunt leads him right up to a coiled rattler. He can pick out a song on his guitar and sing along with it and he knows all the words to _Wichita Lineman_. He can keep his quiet, too, if he’s of a mind to.

“She ain’t coming.” But today he must decide to just go ahead and answer the question – sort of – so Bo won’t keep asking it.

“What do you mean, she ain’t coming?” Mary Pat is, after all, the main reason there’s a pair of Duke boys braving the midday heat. Walking across Singer’s Meadow toward Jackson Pond with flies buzzing by their ears, sweat dripping out of their hair grown out too long and fishing poles propped on their bare shoulders. Or she’s the main reason Luke’s doing it, and Luke’s the main reason Bo’s doing it. Mary Pat has been Luke’s steady girl – as much as his cousin can stay steady with just one girl anyway – since school let out a month back. Luke goes to the pond to meet her and Bo tags along and drops his fishing line in the water while Luke’s gets set aside. Pretending that they came to fish and keeping their kin’s questions at bay by returning home with the occasional perch.

Meanwhile, Luke and Mary Pat generally set to ignoring him. Keeping just enough distance between him and them to provide the illusion of privacy, while Luke and Mary Pat kiss. 

Luke’s good at things and kissing is one of those things. Mary Pat has lasted longest, but there are a lot of girls that could attest to Luke’s kissing prowess. Bo could attest, too – Jackson Pond might the nicest place he’s been dragged out to, but it’s not the only one. There’s the wood fence behind the mill where there was nothing to do but watch the squirrels scamper across the telephone wires while Luke made ample-chested Peggy Lynn squirm and giggle by slipping his hand all the way up into her shirt. Then there’s the junk yard, reeking of rotting things, where Luke kissed Sarah Ann and Bo scouted around for useful tractor parts. In the cool shade of the athletic field bleachers or in the trash-strewn alley behind the General Store, Luke can kiss girls and make them forget their ridiculous surroundings, make them forget that there’s a big-eyed younger cousin-as-chaperone nearby. They wiggle and moan and giggle, they let Luke kiss parts of them that usually stay hidden under at least two layers of clothes.

Bo watches through a fringe of lashes, on the pretext of learning a thing or two. In between checking his fishing line or climbing on hollow wrecks of yesterday’s cars, he’ll catch a glimpse of what he can, and feel his face flush up hot at what he sees. Pink skin, red lips, sometimes the rose-brown of a nipple, and then there are the moans and giggles.

“You like that?” Luke sometimes says, after. Not to the girl. She’ll be long gone. To Bo, asking if he enjoyed what he’d seen. The bulge in Bo’s jeans does all the answering that’s necessary, and Luke smirks in his knowing way. About younger cousins that can’t control themselves. But Luke’s not as smart as he thinks.

“She ain’t coming,” Luke repeats with a shrug.

“She meeting us there?”

“Nope.” 

Some questions don’t need to be answered or even asked. Bo might not be as smart as Luke or as familiar with girls, but he’s been around this block a few times. Luke’s good at just about everything, but he’s no good at girls. He’s terrible at girls, really, at least the parts of girls that don’t involve petting and kissing. Talking, listening, he’s lousy at that. Even his stare is too rough, too urgent, too much want and too little give. Mary Pat’s not coming because, like every girl before her, she’s shed herself of Luke.

Bo trots ahead a couple of steps, then turns around to halt in Luke’s path, bringing them to a standstill and a faceoff all at once.

“Then what are we doing here?” Fly zipping by too close to his ear, Bo shakes it off and swats uselessly at what he can’t see. Swipes his arm across his forehead where the sweat threatens to get past his brows and into his eyes. Doesn’t help much when his arm’s as sweaty as his head, which is as sweaty as every other part of him. 

“Fishing,” is all he gets for an answer. Well, that and rolled eyes that announce how dumb Bo is for having to ask. You’d think Luke would be dizzy with all that eye-rolling he does.

Luke pushes past him, hot and slimy because if Bo sweats, Luke oozes. Almost oily and gross where their arms brush against each other, Luke’s corded with muscle. Bo’s working on growing into his body – that’s what Daisy says, and the girl ought to know, since she’s doing the same – so his arms aren’t all that big. Not yet, but he’s been practicing tossing hay bales with as much ease as Luke. Wouldn’t seem like the not-quite-seventeen months that separate them would make that much of a difference. But Luke’s good at things, and farm work and muscles are two of them.

“Fishing?” Two Duke boys, summer vacation from school, a few hours of freedom from chores and family, and _fishing_ is what Luke wants to do? Sitting quietly by a pond when they could be out galloping over fields in borrowed horses, or hiking up to the old Indian caves to search out some previously undiscovered tunnel in the perma-cool darkness. Or junkyard diving for an old clunker to fix up, even going to town to find another girl for Luke to kiss and Bo to watch –anything they could do would be more fun than sitting still and silent by the water, like they’ve been sentenced to one of Daisy’s boring picnics.

At least there’s food at those.

Bo trots to catch up to Luke’s retreating back anyway, because fishing with Luke is better than any of the alternatives alone. Besides, it’s awfully hard to argue with a man that isn’t near enough to argue back.

“Fishing?” he asks again in hopes of anything at all other than what happens, which is Luke marching forward, deaf to reason.

The cooler tree-line is just ahead with roots and rocks jutting out of the otherwise smooth-dirt path. Bare feet always seem like such a good idea until they get to this part of the trail, and every time they come here he remembers a bit late why leaving his boots behind in the borrowed pickup that’s parked in the Orchard Road pull-off is such a bad idea. But Luke always shucks his shoes before setting out to the lake, and Luke is good at things. Bo wants to be good at things too, which is why he watches Luke so much, why he follows behind so closely and tries to keep from limping when the ground roughens under his feet. He’s not quite capable of it, which is why he is glad that Luke does not turn around or otherwise pay him any mind.

Until they reach the smooth bank of the pond, that is. That’s where regaining Luke’s attention becomes his most urgent mission.

“Why are we fishing?”

“Because that’s what we told Jesse we was doing.” Luke’s good at a lot of things, but staying out of trouble with their uncle is not one of them. Bo is better at that. Luke long ago learned not to tell out-and-out fibs, but he’s never been shy of strolling the tightrope between truth and lie without a safety net. And Bo has never thought twice about following right after him, either.

Bo trots up in front of Luke again, then stops in the middle of the path. A lot harder here for Luke to pass him with the pond to the right and briars to the left and a stingy strip of earth between.

“When did Mary Pat dump you?” He’s risking an impromptu dip in the pond.

“Who says she did?”

Bo does. Or he just did, anyway, and no need to repeat himself. Luke’s being deliberately obtuse today. Bo just cocks his eyebrow, waiting for an answer. Luke pushes past him a second time, catching him by the arm when Bo starts to teeter toward the water. Mumbles—

“Watch yourself.”

—the same reflexive way he’d bless a sneeze.

“If she ain’t dumped you,” Bo asks as he finds himself trotting along behind Luke again. Annoying is what it is. He’s fourteen, not four. His legs are almost as long as Luke’s now and unlike his cousin, he’s still growing. There’s no good reason he should be tagging behind like someone’s unwanted little brother. “Then why ain’t she meeting us?”

“How come you got so many questions?”

“How come you ain’t got no answers?”

Luke’s eyes, slitted so most of their beauty is hidden, half-glaring at Bo over his shoulder, lips pressed together, but no meanness in it. Closer to a smirk and he slows his pace. Seems like one point has been awarded to Bo for persistence or just for being funny. He’ll take it either way. 

No sooner has he caught up to Luke, all but rubbing shoulders in the tight confines of the path, then Luke stops, silently declaring this particular bit of nowhere to be today’s fishing spot by plopping down in the dirt. Rolls up the legs of his jeans once, then twice, folding in neat creases that would make Daisy proud, then sliding forward enough to drop his feet into the water. Squinting up at Bo and the sun behind him, because only one Duke boy is sitting. The other is still standing with his unmoving fishing pole making a tan line on his shoulder.

“What?” Luke asks.

“Why are we fishing?” 

A twist of lips is all he gets in answer, slightly shaken head declaring that this question has already been answered. And maybe it has. They are fishing because it’s what Luke, for reasons unknown, wants to do. But it’s not what Bo wants to do.

He drops his pole with no gentleness or concern for the reel, but that’s okay, because it’s a hand-me-down from Luke, who inherited it by way of Jesse from one of their daddies – his own, Bo’s or Daisy’s. Jesse never has given a satisfactory answer on whose it once was, says he doesn’t remember and anyway, people of his generation happily shared, with no need to declare sole ownership of anything. 

Jesse also says that his generation was grateful for whatever they got and took great care of all of their belongings, but Bo figures those watercolor memories of Jesse’s are missing a few fine details. There are more than a couple of last generation’s books with torn pages and split spines on the shelf in his and Luke’s bedroom and remnants of broken bicycles in their shed. Plus, he knows for a fact that his daddy and Luke’s deliberately ran their car through the barn that used to be in the farm’s north fields and is now nothing more than a mostly-collapsed pile of rubble. Sheriff Coltrane told them that story one day when he found them “loitering” in the junkyard and said they were up to no good, just like their daddies always had been. Told them grandpa Duke wanted their daddies to spend the night in the pokey for that one, just to teach them a lesson, but Jesse talked him out of it. He and Luke haven’t done anything that bad.

Yet.

Luke’s head keeps shaking and his mouth keeps smirking about Bo’s pole or the fit he figures Bo’s throwing, or whatever he thinks he has a right to smirk at. Sets his own fishing pole neatly to his side, turns away from Bo and starts digging his fingers into the dirt nearby, looking for worms. 

Bo never likes being ignored, especially when he has asked perfectly reasonable questions. Besides, he figures he should be more interesting to Luke than a bunch of worms. Jesse’s always saying that the most important thing they have is each other. 

He yanks up the legs of his jeans – no need to be precise and fussy about it like Luke – and jumps straight into the shallow edge of the pond, sending up a violent splash.

“Bo,” Luke snaps, sparkles on the left side of his face where water droplets are reflecting the overhead sun to match the angry glint of his eyes.

Well, now maybe Luke knows how Bo feels. Maybe, for the first time this summer, Bo’s ready to admit to himself how he feels.

His hands go to his hips in defiance of whatever Luke’s going to complain at him. Anger (no that’s not anger) heats his face, adrenaline (it’s probably at least partly adrenaline, anyway) deafens him to anything but the cadence of his galloping heartbeat in his ears, nervousness (yeah, he’s nervous, but not only that—) twists his guts into a strangely welcome knot.

Waiting is for fools, and he’s been a fool for months. Now he’s maybe more of an idiot, but he’s about to be an honest idiot. An honest idiot on a mission. 

He bends at the waist – so stupid, so ungainly, but he’s ankle deep in water, so his options are limited – tips his head to the side and kisses Luke.

_Kisses_ him. As if he hasn’t seen his cousin kiss dozens of girls, as if he doesn’t know that Luke _likes_ kissing girls and has never shown any interest in kissing boys. Somewhere between the awkward tilt to his head and the reasonable fear in his gut, his heart has gone past galloping and is somewhere close to bounding right out of his chest. 

Meanwhile, his lips are on autopilot, smooshing into Luke’s in a way that he hopes is passably sexy, or at least not weird. He’s kissed girls, sure, but they haven’t been older than him or more experienced – they’ve tasted like mint gum with a slight hint of sweet tea. Luke’s flavor is a lot more mature, a mix sweat and aftershave, and something tastes like breakfast, but that might be Bo’s own stomach plotting an unfortunately-timed rebellion.

Soft lips – Bo has always known Luke’s lips are full, that they get a deep red when he’s been kissing, that they are, in their own way, as appealing as his eyes – but he never much figured on them being this soft. Almost mushy, lax, like he’s not kissing back, so Bo tries moving his own lips around in different ways, pursing, shifting, nudging. Trying, maybe, to get Luke to open his mouth, though he’s not sure it’s the smartest thing he’s ever done when behind lips there’s teeth, and Luke’s are plenty big and strong enough to bite some tender part of him clean off.

His hands, he realizes late – or early, how long have they been like this? Time stretched like taffy and he could have been stooped like this for seconds or days – are on Luke’s bare shoulders, slick with sweat and splashed pond water. Thinks he should probably be moving them, should stroke Luke’s skin or knead the muscle or something – seems like when Luke kisses girls, his hands are everywhere and it makes both him and the girl happy. 

His hands move, but he’s not doing it. Luke’s shifting, grabbing, _pushing_; the next thing Bo feels is cold water hitting him everywhere at once, or him hitting the water in a sprawl and the taste of Luke is replaced by the mineral flavor of pond. In his mouth, nose eyes, slimy mud under his backside and—

“Luke!” he complains just a split second before he realizes that he probably doesn’t have the right. Sits up, shoves his wet hair back out of his eyes and tries to ready himself for whatever is coming at him next.

“Fool,” his cousin echoes back at him, but there’s an amused twist to his lips that are as red as they ever have been after an afternoon with Mary Pat. On his feet, ankle deep in the pond, fishing pole forgotten, dirt still streaking his hand where a minute ago he was digging for worms. He bends like he means to wash if off, instead scoops up a splash of water, aimed at Bo. Doesn’t make it all the way to his face, but when Bo looks down at his chest there’s a lovely sprig of seaweed sticking there. 

“You think that’s funny?” Bo asks, sincerely hoping that’s exactly what Luke thinks. It’s better than Luke thinking that a good drowning would cure Bo and his wandering lips of their peculiar urges. Luke lifts an eyebrow, then makes to walk past him, suspiciously just close enough for Bo to grab his ankle. In an instant they are wrestling in the pond, the same as they have done dozens of times before. Splashing and dunking and letting the cold water douse the heat that grew in Bo’s pants. Eventually they will have to come out and try to catch a couple fish so Jesse doesn’t ask them how they managed to waste a perfectly good day at the lake with nothing but soaked jeans to show for it. But that’s a problem for later.

Right now is for roughhousing and Bo figures this is as normal as it gets under the circumstances. He grins, takes another dunking and figures everything is going to be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Bo figures everything is going to be fine. Of course he does, sitting at the dinner table, wearing the grin of a kid expecting ice cream and oblivious to Daisy’s openly curious stare. The absence of fish, despite the powerful smell of pond that accompanied a pair of Duke boys into the house this afternoon, was duly noted by their uncle, who stroked his beard and told them he hoped that the next time they went fishing they would consider catching a few instead of swimming with them. Daisy had wrinkled her nose and suggested they could wash their own clothes on Saturday.

And now she’s wondering how, exactly, a little swim has made Bo’s eyes sparklier, his grin goofier, his hair blonder and, somehow, all of him bigger and louder than he was this morning.

“Luke.” That’s Jesse, Jesse calling his name in a way that announces he’s said it a few times already. Daisy giggles.

“Yeah?” he answers, gets a cocked eyebrow and a press of lips. “Yes, sir?” Sometimes he seems to be grown up enough to manage without the _sir_. He likes to test it, to see what he can get away with, but this doesn’t seem like a good day for that. 

“Best you stop daydreaming about girls, boy.” Sure thing. No problem there, he wasn’t thinking about girls at all. “And pull yourself together. There’s more important things to be concentrating on than that necking you done down at the pond.” His guts spin like one of those fancy washing machines in the Sears over in Cedar City. Makes him wonder how he will explain being too seasick to eat the stew and mashed potatoes that sit steaming in the middle of the table, waiting only for the family to say grace before being doled out and devoured.

“We wasn’t necking!” Bo declares with fine timing and a delightful lack of common sense. Luke figures that smacking him now would only double the idiocy, so he keeps his response to a glower. Which, he is sure, doesn’t make him look guilty at all.

“Well, we know _you_ wasn’t, sugar.” Daisy’s smirk is about as subtle as Bo’s denials. “But Luke there, well we know all about him.”

Bo’s mouth is open to – what? – defend his honor? Insist on his prowess? Luke doesn’t even want to think about it, but before he can interrupt, tackle and muzzle Bo, Jesse clears his throat. With all the implied meaning in the world.

_Knock it off, all three of you._

_Yes, sir._

Four heads dip, Jesse mumbles his usual prayer of thanks for food and family, and then the food starts getting passed around and heaped onto plates. Somewhere in the past couple of years, Bo has started eating like a half-starved raccoon, so his plate bears the most food. His fork will work double-time, too, so he gets first dibs on seconds.

Jesse winks at Luke over his own mound of potatoes. 

“Don’t think I don’t know what you do at that pond, boy,” makes Luke’s stomach go round one more time, fast, like a spin cycle. “Remember, I was young once, too.” Another wink to show just how much Jesse knows about being young. Of course, when Jesse was young he didn’t have an even younger cousin tagging along behind him. One with peculiar tastes. And flavors – what an unfortunate time to realize that he knows what Bo tastes like.

“Wherever your head was,” is quite possibly the worst thing Jesse could say right now. Bo’s giggle makes Luke glare and their uncle pause long enough to consider whether the two of them should get a stern lecture or, worse, a serious line of interrogation. Luck must be with the whole bunch of them, because Jesse decides on neither. “You need to get it back, because we got work to do tonight.”

Which means a moonshine run. What a blessed relief. If he can make it through dinner without any major mishaps, he’ll end up in a car, fully focused on one task and one task only – getting Duke wares safely from here to there.

“Can I come?” Bo’s usual question.

“No.” The usual answer, and if Luke jumps the gun and says the same thing a beat before Jesse does, well, that can be put down to how many times the discussion has happened. 

Bo’s pouting is perfectly ordinary, too, but the way he moons at Luke is just—

“Reckon we’d best get eating then,” is his attempt to interrupt the staring contest that has set up between him and Bo. Should work; Bo likes to eat. But no, there he is, mouth full to capacity and looking at Luke like he’s the dessert that got taken away.

Dinner ends, eventually, and Jesse’s brain must be zeroed in on the task ahead, because he never recognizes the strange fixation one of his nephews has for the other. Nor does he notice Luke studiously ignoring the way he’s getting looked at.

Daisy sets to doing the dishes while Luke heads back to his bedroom to change into his darkest jeans and a black t-shirt for the run, and discovers, all over again, that it is Bo’s bedroom, too. Always has been, no need to knock or ask if anyone is decent, because they’ve got equal right to be here at any time.

“Luke,” is all set to be a complaint or a request (or a _kiss_) and Luke’s a little too naked to deal with any of the above right now.

“Later, Bo,” he says, looking his cousin in the eyes for the first time in hours – it’s a mistake, too much want or need or straight-up _electricity_ in those eyes – in an effort to convey meaning the same way he always has.

He gets a smile in return, full-wattage. Luke jerks his thumb over his shoulder – _get out_ – and goes back to dressing himself.

Bo leaves with a whistle on his lips and Luke starts thinking all over again about how those lips taste. Young, like sweet cereal and chocolate milk.

Dressed and ready to go, Luke takes a left out of his bedroom door instead of a well-worn right and makes his way down the dark and seldom used hallway that leads to the formal front door. Last time Luke passed through here might have been when he was brought for a visit before his folks died, and he would have been carried through then. He makes his unfamiliar way out the door into the thin light of waning evening, and heads around toward the kitchen end of the house.

“Whoa,” comes from the porch; Jesse, sitting in the swing in his own dark overcoat and black cap to hide the streaks of gray in his hair. “When did you get out here?”

Luke shrugs. Figures it’s better than _I just got here and the only reason you didn’t know it is I went around the wrong way to avoid Bo_. “You ready?”

“Just waiting for you.” _And your odd choice to take the long way around to getting here._

Luke shrugs again and gestures with his hand between the gray pickup that he parked in the driveway just a couple hours back and the barn down the slope a ways.

“You take _Tilly_,” Jesse answers the silent question. Good, that means he’s doing the actual running and Jesse’s on backup duty tonight. Luke starts off at a slow jog toward the barn. “That is, if you can keep your mind on driving and off what you done this afternoon.”

Luke turns back to him with a frown that he hopes will put an end to the line of discussion that’s gone on way too long. Jesse likes to tease and when he gets his claws into something he hangs on until it’s way past funny.

“Go on,” his uncle dismisses.

On he goes, into the barn, into the fastest car the Dukes have ever owned, into the dark. Out to the still, loading up and off into the night where nothing stirs but him, the owls, the customers and somewhere out there, unseen and unneeded, Jesse. Cloaked in the folds of darkness, where he can think, especially after the last delivery has been safely made and he’s ambling home at only ten miles over the speed limit. Try to figure out how to handle Bo and his curious (and _curious_) ways.

But by the time he gets home, a jaw-cracking yawn catching him off-guard as he crosses the dewy farmyard while _Tilly_’s engine ticks and cools in the barn, nothing makes any more sense than it did this afternoon. Jesse pulls the pickup to a stop under the oak tree, gets out and waddles up to the porch, congratulating Luke on a clean run with a light clap on the back.

“Get some sleep, boy,” he mumbles. Luke nods and stumbles up the steps onto the porch and through the door into the house.

Bo has other ideas. Luke has just closed their bedroom door when it comes.

“Luke,” in whatever Bo imagines a whisper sounds like. Closer to a shout.

“Shh.” He tracks across his own bedroom in the dark, muscle memory keeping him safe from barked shins and stubbed toes until he finds the dresser and pulls out the second drawer.

“But Luke,” is only a fraction softer.

Pajama pants – he hopes they are his and that what he has grabbed will cover him passably. No time to worry about it, though. Night clothes in hand, he heads back out toward the bathroom to change in privacy.

“Tomorrow, Bo,” he mumbles.

And damn if Bo doesn’t take that as some sort of promise.


	3. Chapter 3

_Tomorrow_, Luke said. _Tomorrow_, and maybe Bo should have asked him for clarification. Maybe he would have if old slick hadn’t closed the door to their bedroom too fast for him to get it out last night.

_Tomorrow_, it turns out, did not mean _tomorrow morning_. Not when Bo said good morning in their bedroom or when he tried out a “Hey, Luke” during barn chores. That was when _tomorrow_ became _later_.

Later, Bo.

_Later_ wasn’t changing the oil in the pickup after breakfast, and it wasn’t checking the fence line before lunch. It wasn’t driving into town for some new chicken wire or dropping off a dozen eggs at Doc Petticord’s as thanks for seeing to Daisy’s persistent cough last month. It wasn’t after lunch when Luke told him to stay behind while he went out to check on the corn – _It only takes one of us, Bo_ – and it wasn’t after that when Jesse declared it too hot to work and retired to his room for a nap. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t – until Bo figured out that the only way to make _later_ into now was to bug Luke enough that he’d decide to take Bo somewhere safe and let him have his say.

Which is why they are sitting in the pickup in the high school parking lot. Not a soul around because who the heck would go to a school during summer break? 

Luke, that’s who. Luke, who is sitting in the driver’s seat and strung tighter than a barbed wire fence, pickup still running like a fast getaway in waiting. And all Bo wanted, yesterday, was maybe to say he’d had fun. Enjoyed the afternoon together. Maybe asked if Luke was busy this afternoon or if he had designs on asking Mary Pat out again anytime soon. Inquired as to whether he’d had fun too and if he’d…

Hell. Who is he kidding? He wanted to grab Luke right then and try that kissing thing again, see if he could do better, but even if he couldn’t it was still plenty good as it was. Had his stomach throwing lightning bolts that sent his heart bouncing happily around his chest. Shorter of breath than if he’d run for miles, and it was the best feeling in the world.

And now Luke’s spent the last day working himself up into a knot like Bo gets in his athletic shoes, sometimes. The kind that might take hours of working at and still be too tangled to get loose. Usually Bo ends up slicing into those laces with a pair of scissors and replacing them with strips of rawhide that the family keeps in a box that sits on top of the refrigerator. But he likes Luke just like he is, whole and uncut, and he wouldn’t want to change him out for some second best substitute. 

He can’t cut the knot and he can’t untie it, so he goes for the third option, and ignores it altogether. The second Luke turns in his direction, annoyance coming off him in waves, Bo lunges forward pressing his lips against Luke’s to shut the both of them up.

_I think I might love you_ probably would have sounded stupid, anyway.

Luke’s got excellent reflexes, being an athlete and moonshine driver. The kiss ends with a noisy smack of Bo’s hungry lips as he gets shoved back. Wide hand holding him against the corner where seat meets door, and Luke steals a look around them at the no one that was in this lot before and is still here now.

“Not here,” he all but whispers, just in case the no one that’s lurking in the vicinity overhears them. 

Bo grins, because of all the things Luke could have said after pushing him away, _not here_ is the best.

“Under the bleachers,” he offers.

“No.”

“Why not? You done necked under there plenty of times.”

“With girls, Bo. Not with you.”

Hard feelings are pointless, but they coil up inside him anyway. 

“Ain’t nobody anywhere near here,” he says but arguing isn’t going to help him one bit. He needs to think – fast – before _not here_ turns into _not anywhere_. Can’t be the pond again, too much time for Luke to think of reasons not to do it as they walk the path. Not the warehouses, not the alley in town, not anywhere anyone might _see_ them. “Let me drive,” he decides.

Luke looks at him out of the corner of his eye and frowns like it’s really that big of a deal to let his underaged cousin drive when he’s already been doing it for a year and Luke’s the one who taught him how, right in this very pickup. Hell, there’s not a soul in Hazzard that would blink to see Bo behind the wheel, when Dukes are known to be born drivers. Jesse was delivering moonshine by the time he was Bo’s age. Laws may have changed since then, but Dukes haven’t.

Bo just shoves himself across the bench seat toward the driver’s side. That it brings him closer to Luke is only a bonus. Another shuffle and he’s practically in his cousin’s lap.

_Girls_, Bo figures, wouldn’t be this bold. (But if they were, Luke wouldn’t mind taking them down to the bleachers where someone might _see_ them.) Girls would be dainty and demure and pretend to be shocked by any suggestion that they want to be this close to Luke, but Bo has been practically sitting in Luke’s lap for as long as he has memories, so he’s not going to get shy about it now. One more shift – not even that much, just a ghost of a shift, a threat to move even closer when they are already touching from their shoulders to their knees, and Luke shakes his head, lets out a snort over stupid insistent cousins, and opens the driver’s side door. Quick as that he’s outside, slamming the door and jogging around the hood of the pickup to the passenger side. Bo slides into the welcome warmth of where Luke was – though maybe he could so with a little less sweat soaking into the back of his t-shirt – and waits for the slam of the passenger side door before releasing the parking brake, putting the truck in gear, and driving off.

“Bo,” Luke starts, and it’s not a good _Bo_. It’s the kind of _Bo_ that rhymes with no, and Bo doesn’t want to hear it. The truck isn’t agile like their moonshine runner is, and it leans a little precariously into the swerve Bo makes, but soon as anything they are on a dirt trail through the woods. “Bo!” That _Bo_ is better. It sounds like fear, and fear is just one step away from excited, and excited is how he wants Luke to feel.

“It’s fine, Luke,” he reassures, adds a grin. It is fine, just fine, because this trail ends in a good place. A place that Luke won’t have to worry about being seen with Bo, who is inconveniently not a _girl_.

The bumps in the trail keep Luke from talking and the twist forming in Bo’s stomach keeps him plenty quiet, too. Before the silence can get awkward, Bo is hitting his destination, and though Luke must know it, too, he doesn’t say anything.

They played here a bunch, just a few years back. Before Luke hit high school and started being _too old_ for games. Too old to play with Bo, was what he really meant because he still plays plenty of games. Just, they’re all official-like, baseball and football and basketball at school instead of Cowboys and Indians or tag or racing bikes around the crumbling outbuildings of what used to be the McKay Farm back when their daddies were boys. Been empty for longer than either of them has been alive, and even Jesse struggles to remember what Old Man McKay looked like, though this property it just a stone’s throw from the Duke farm.

Back then, Luke wasn’t ashamed to be seen with him; back then, Bo was more important to him than some stupid girl.

He hits the brakes a little hard and skids into a dust-kicking 90-degree stop, coming inches from hitting the back of the old paddock. Wouldn’t matter to much of anyone but him and Luke if he’d flattened it.

“The way I got it figured,” he snaps, caught up in his own suddenly spiraling anger. Jesse always says his temper’s too short. Oh well. “You liked it when I kissed you.” There’s a silence that isn’t agreeing or disagreeing, it’s Luke working through what he’s willing to own up to. “You kissed me back.”

“I reckon you’re right,” shouldn’t be as big of a relief as it is. Bo wasn’t much more than anteing up when he made his accusations. Now he knows he’s won the pot. “But that don’t mean we can do it all willy-nilly whenever you want.” The pot isn’t as big as he would like, maybe, but he’s won it.

“We could make rules,” Bo offers, gets a solid nod of approval from Luke’s slightly flushed face on that one. Luke likes rules.

“Nowheres public.” Luke likes making rules, that is. Rules for others to follow, but he doesn’t always follow rules so well himself. Principal Wilson at the high school could attest to that, in fact has attested to that a few times in meetings with Jesse. Meetings followed by discussions at home and sometimes trips out to the barn from which Luke and Jesse emerge equally as miserable. 

“That parking lot wasn’t public, Luke,” Bo complains.

“Was too.”

No point in arguing with a person who’s sure he’s right. “Our bedroom ain’t public,” he counters.

“Nowheres close to Jesse and Daisy,” Luke asserts.

Bo is starting to lose the pot he figured he won. “Our bedroom when Jesse and Daisy ain’t home.”

Luke shrugs about that one, seems Bo has successfully made his first rule, but he’s still behind two-to-one. “The barn? When Jesse and Daisy ain’t home?”

“I suppose you like the smell of mules and goats when you gotta breathe through your nose? Ain’t you got a lick of sense?”

“The back barn then.” Only their moonshine runner and tractor are in there. “I like the smell of motor oil just fine.”

“Only when Daisy and Jesse ain’t home,” Luke agrees. Then he adds, “No still sites.”

That’s only logical. They can hide from the rest of the world at those, but not their family. And Bo is in complete agreement that they don’t need Jesse and Daisy knowing about what they’ve done – what he wants to do right now, really, if only they would stop talking.

“Rainbow Mine,” Bo suggests. “Ain’t nobody but us been there since forever.”

“That’s ‘cause most people are fools,” Luke says with a mocking snicker. Rumor in Hazzard is that those mines are haunted, but to two young Dukes, they’ve always been fun to explore. Even Daisy has shown no inclination to follow them there, and for a few years she followed them everywhere. “No place where couples court, even if there’s nobody there. No Kissing Cliff or Hound Dog Lake or…”

“No place where boys take _girls_, Luke, got it.” For something that’s supposed to be fun, Luke sure is taking all of the pleasure out of a little kissing. Then again, Luke always has been a real sourpuss, and Bo knows exactly how to handle that. 

“Right here,” Bo says with a wide grin, the kind that gets him cookies straight out of the oven and extra candy at Halloween. He opens the door and slips out. Kissing in a pickup truck is okay for a _girl_, he reckons, but when it comes to him and Luke, he figures on their feet, face to face and not twisted sideways, is the best way to do it. On even ground. “Right now,” he adds, before closing the door to the truck with a solid click. 

Luke comes out the other side in that slow, measured way he has. That way he walks like he’s never been afraid of anything in his life and if a grizzly were to show up right now, he’d just wrestle it to the ground. The two of them meet up at the rickety side wall of the stables, where there’s at least a narrow band of shade to protect them from the heat of the afternoon. Bo has the odd urge to comment on the drought-like days, how long it has been since they had a good soaking rain. To talk about the weather, but then Luke is touching him. Hands gripping his arms just above the elbows, sweat on sweat, fingers ever so slightly tighter than is comfortable. Those pretty blue eyes looking just away from Bo’s, maybe at his ear or his hair or nothing at all, slightly squinted like he’s doing some powerful thinking.

Or rethinking, and there’s just no room at all for that. They’ve already overthought this with all the stupid rules they’ve just made, so Bo dives in where maybe he ought to tiptoe. Lips on Luke’s and there it is, everything he’s wanted for the last 24 hours.


	4. Chapter 4

Bo is… dang it all if Bo isn’t pretty. It’s something Luke has always known, heard it from Aunt Lavinia and all the ladies in Hazzard Square from the time he was too little to wonder how a boy could be pretty. _What a pretty baby_ and _It’s such a shame about his mama and daddy_ were the chorus and refrain of their shared childhood and…

This is his baby cousin, leaning into a kiss like it’s food to a starving man. Asking with everything in him for Luke to tip his head, to make it deeper than lips on lips, and it’s…

It’s Bo learning to kiss, Luke decides, right then and there. Looking to his older cousin to teach him, to let him practice on him until he is ready for the real thing. That takes what has been backwards and upside down in his world, and rights it. Bo is just getting himself ready to kiss girls and mean it, and Luke figures there’s no reason he can’t do what he’s always done – help Bo grow up in his mama- and daddy-less world. They both know Uncle Jesse answer any question Bo had and offer guidance if he could, but there are some things you don’t ask your Bible-reading uncle after dinner, and getting with girls is one of them.

As soon as Luke relaxes into the knowledge that kissing Bo is just an off-white shade of normal, he finds himself with an extra tongue in his mouth. Figures Bo really does need his assistance, because his cousin’s tongue is just like the rest of him: overeager, impatient, all over the place and just a bit on the spastic side. It’s a good thing Bo has come to him for help.

Luke tries to slow things down and smooth them out, but his young cousin doesn’t take instruction very well. Never has; his school teachers have been sending home mediocre report cards attesting to the fact since first grade. Only way Bo ever really learns a lesson is if Jesse burns it into his backside with a whip. 

Their uncle and his whip are not good thoughts for the current circumstances.

Luke’s left hand reaches blindly until it finds the splintering wall of yesterday’s stables. Has a fleeting thought that they would be safer inside, decides it’s too much for now. Now is him taking hold of this kiss like it’s a car, and steering it. Turning a hard left, then pushing forward until he’s got Bo’s back up against the wall and his own turned toward the pickup. That’s where he finally gains control, gets Bo to tip his head back just slightly, and shows him how it’s done with confident strokes of his own tongue.

Bo is a quick learner. His back comes away from the wood and he reclaims his full height, head tiiting and finding a sweet rhythm that Luke can appreciate.

Should have made a rule that nothing but their lips can be in contact when they do this, but it’s too late for that now. Luke’s hands have gone on an unsanctioned mission to hold onto Bo’s upper arms. Gripping tighter than is probably wise into those ropy muscles that are just starting to become anything at all. Eyes closed and drifting along on a dream, his hands slipping up the slickness of Bo’s sweaty arms until they get caught under the short sleeves of that ratty t-shirt he’s spent most of the summer wearing – probably needs a good washing – and that brings him back. Reminds Luke where he is and exactly who he is kissing. 

He pulls away, slight smack of lips from where Bo wasn’t done kissing yet. 

(Just a boy, just learning. Uncle Jesse has rules about how Luke treats those younger than him, smaller. No roughhousing, no introducing them to trouble. No taking them to places they are not ready to go.)

“Wow,” Bo says, lips pinker than Luke has ever seen them, eyes shining when they stare off into the nothingness of the untilled fields. Wow, yep, that about sums it up.

Bo is lighter than air, floating through life most of the time. Nothing much seems to stick to him. Luke figures it’s going to take at least one more application of today’s lesson for Bo to really get it down.

Luke’s hands, which he must have pulled out from under Bo’s shirt sleeves somewhere along the way, get themselves a good grip on Bo’s shoulders and reel him in. All business because this is just an arrangement between cousins. An education, like summer school, but without the pencils and desks and Luke figures he’s a lot less stuffy than those teachers over at the school. They would never hide behind abandoned stables, pull Bo closer and tip their heads until lips meet lips.

Dukes are moonshiners. They are not saints, they do what they need to for survival and if they happen to have a lot of fun doing it, that’s just a bonus. But they go to church most Sundays and they pray before meals and they are honest. And it is God’s solemn truth that Bo has mastered this kissing thing dang quick. He’s still in a bit of a rush, and sometimes his curiosity leads him to explore a tooth or two, but he’s definitely got some good old Duke talent. At least in his lips.

His arms, well, they’ve been pretty stiff and unmoving, until quite suddenly Bo’s hands are on Luke’s back, somewhere between a hug and confusion, like he knows he should be doing something with them, but he doesn’t know what.

That’s does it. Luke figures it would undo any teaching he has managed so far if he starts laughing right into Bo’s mouth. He untangles himself from Bo until he has his whole body to himself again, shakes off the sense of loneliness that comes over him like an unexpected wave.

“Well, Pilgrim,” he drawls. “I reckon it’s curtains for you.”

“No fair,” Bo answers back, singing the refrain of their childhood. “You always get to be John Wayne!”

“Called it first, pardner. You gotta catch me if you wanna be the good guy,” and then everything is run and dodge and weave through the center of the stables and back out again toward the ruins of the barn. Luke figures by the time he lets Bo catch him the two of them will both be too out of breath to do anything but be little boys playing one last game of tag.


	5. Chapter 5

The summer has been good. Hotter than usual, leading to more noontime naps and evening work, but most days, when it gets dark, Jesse turns his boys loose.

The best night might have been July Fourth, when instead of sitting on the green of Hazzard Square to watch fireworks with everyone else, Luke led the way shinnying up a drainpipe to the roof of the courthouse where they had the skies and their exploding rings of color to themselves. Luke had lain back with his arms behind his head and hadn’t even once complained that someone might see them when Bo crawled up over him for a few kisses. Bo liked him best like that, on his back, relaxed, accepting, and tasting just a bit like the beer he had probably filched from Cooter’s oversized cup when their older friend looked away to admire the girls gathering for the evening’s show. Later, when they climbed back down, Luke went first and whispered encouragement to him from below, because Bo isn’t usually a fan of heights. When he was close to the bottom, Bo felt the warmth and strength of Luke’s hands on his waist where his t-shirt had lifted in the effort of the descent, and he had been helped to solid ground, where Luke caught his hand and held it for just a bit longer than was strictly necessary to ensure his safety. Seemed like a perfect night.

As long as there are no runs to make, they have been trusted to take _Sweet Tilly_ out under the guise of Luke teaching him moonshine running tricks. Bo knows all the tricks and figures he has since he turned ten and finally learned what Jesse’s “business” actually entails. Oh, sure, maybe he never gets to go on moonshine runs, but he knows all about skirting around the edge of trouble, and he’s a natural driver so with two and two put together, he’s been able to add up to four all along.

But Luke lets him drive most of the time anyway, giving commands that send them up deer paths, across streams and over narrow passes only to dip into hollows again. Bo sits back and lets his cousin do the worrying, his hands taking Luke’s orders without his brain even having to engage. And about one in every five or so nights, Luke guides them down into the edge of the Uchee Swamp on the pretext of getting lost and making Bo find their way out, but in between the driving in and driving out, he’ll let Bo throw the car into neutral and the two of them will do a little kissing to the tune of _Tilly_’s idle. 

Bo is grateful for the car that surrounds them, not only because it keeps the mosquitoes-big-as-bats from eating them alive, but also because the steering wheel and the hump of a transmission tunnel keep them from getting close enough to touch with much more than their lips. Ever since that time he tried putting his arms around Luke, he’s been pretty sure he doesn’t want his hands getting involved in what the two of them do in the dark. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with them. If Luke was a girl, he knows he is supposed to try to get to her breasts. He can understand that, and figures if Luke had breasts he’s have been after them from the beginning. Heck, he’s plenty interested in breasts, and reckons he’ll get around to touching some of those in some back hallway of the school soon enough. But when it comes to Luke, he’s not sure what part of him is okay to touch, what part he wants to touch, and what he wants that touching to accomplish. So he kisses, and that’s plenty enough.

Except that tonight, their last night before school starts up again tomorrow, Luke won’t take him out driving. Tonight, Bo’s just his little cousin again, not legal to drive, not old enough to decide on his own bedtime. 

“You need your sleep,” sounds like something Jesse would say, except Jesse’s sitting across the living room, lifting an eyebrow over the edge of the Hazzard Gazette at Luke’s bossiness or Bo whininess or maybe at Daisy, who keeps coming and going from her bedroom wearing one dress after another, asking which one looks prettiest. As if Bo, Luke and Jesse care.

“We don’t have to go out all that late, Luke, we can go now.”

“Ain’t no point when it’s light out,” as much as calls him an idiot. “Ain’t never gonna make a moonshine delivery in the light.”

“Now, don’t be so sure about that Luke,” Jesse butts in. “There was this one time in ’48 when me and…” promises to be a long and dull story, except right then Daisy comes out of her bedroom in the shortest skirt any of them has ever seen her wear. Way up high on her thighs and _wow_, the girl has done a good job of growing into her body this summer. Legs up to her… and Bo finds himself wondering whether sitting would reveal her underwear and then mentally asking the disturbing question of whether his girl cousin is wearing underwear at all.

“You ain’t wearing that to school,” Luke asserts, like he has the right. Then again, it’ll be Luke defending her honor all day if she does dress like that so maybe he has a point.

Jesse’s eyebrow either agrees with Luke or tells him he’s too big for his britches. The way he drops the newspaper he hasn’t much succeeded in reading since after dinner goes to show he’s got something on his mind.

“Am too,” Daisy sasses right back at Luke. Bo gets the feeling she had no real intentions of going to school that way until Luke told her she couldn’t. He finally manages to pull his eyes up from her legs to her… well he’s aiming for her face anyway. It’s not his fault that his eyes get caught up along the way. That dress is dang tight, too.

“Ain’t that your party dress?” he asks, recognizing the pattern of big, weird, green and yellow flowers that don’t look like anything he’s ever seen in nature.

“From last year, and it ain’t my fault I grew over the summer.” Yeah, she grew, but the dress also shrank. The girl has some skills with a pair if scissors and a sewing needle. “And you stop staring at me, Bo Duke.”

“Put some clothes on,” Luke retorts on his behalf. “Then—”

“All of you knock it off!” Jesse bellows, knees popping as he finds his feet, broad index finger of the hand that’s not clasping the newspaper pointing at each of them in turn. “You,” he tells Daisy, “go back in your room and put on something decent. And you,” his finger goes back and forth between Bo and Luke, “get outside, get to that barn and do your chores.”

“But there ain’t no chores left to be done,” Bo explains. “We done them all—"

“Best you find some,” Jesse warns, “or I’ll find them for you. You just go out there and burn off them back-to-school jitters and don’t you come back into my house until they’re gone.”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles. Luke just nods his head and turns on his heel.

“And boys,” Jesse adds. “You be back in here by 8:30 and no complaining. You got school tomorrow and I ain’t gonna be hearing from your teachers that you was sleepy in class.”

“Yes, sir,” he repeats. Luke’s already halfway out the door. Of course he is. Waiting for Luke to respect their uncle with a _sir_ would mean standing in the kitchen for the rest of his life. Bo follows Luke out.

“That girl ain’t got a lick of sense,” his charming cousin is mumbling as they make their way across the farmyard. “And neither do you.”

“Me? What’d I do?” he complains back at Luke, kicking the dust so that it rises and catches in the sideways sunlight of early evening. Pretty, in its own way.

“What did you think you was doing, staring at her like that? You really figure that was an okay thing to do?” Luke slaps open the sliding door at the back of the barn. “She’s your cousin.”

Yeah, and so is Luke, who he has spent the summer kissing. But it doesn’t seem like it’s in Bo’s best interests to bring that up right now.

“I was just surprised how much she’s grown up, is all.”

“No kidding,” Luke answers and there’s no real telling from the tone whether it’s agreeing with him or scolding him. Bo decides not to worry about it, instead choosing to lean against a support beam in a way that he hopes is sexy and not awkward.

Doesn’t matter what he looks like, Luke’s not looking at him. Standing in the middle of the barn with his hands on his hips, enduring a snort of displeasure from Maudine over how her space has been invaded. The mule and his cousin share a foul mood for a moment or two, and then Luke sets to moving hay bales. Nowhere useful, just from a pile under one end of the hayloft to a pile under the other end. He pulls out a few stands of straw and gives them over to Maudine in some kind of solidarity about how miserable the whole world is.

“Luke,” he tries. “I don’t reckon Jesse really wants us to do chores.” He gets a glance out of the corner of Luke’s eye as his cousin starts to heft another bale.

“You really figure that part where he said to find some chores to do didn’t really mean nothing? Oh, I don’t figure _you_ have to do any chores,” he adds, and there’s that thing he has always hated, where Luke acts like Bo is somehow spoiled and Jesse’s favorite. Like being the youngest is a free pass to skip out on hard work, when Bo does as much hard work as anyone else around here.

“Hey, fellas.” That’s Daisy, dressed in her chore-doing jeans, a t-shirt that’s got a flower and a dirt smudge on the front, and boots that used to be Luke’s about three years ago. Nothing flattering about the clothes or the simple ponytail in her hair, but it doesn’t matter. Now that Bo has taken a good look at her, he realizes she’s grown up beautiful and tall when he wasn’t paying any attention to her. “Sorry I got y’all in trouble.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” Luke tells her and just like that, everything is forgiven. Between Luke and Daisy, anyway. Bo’s not sure how he fits into this picture.

“Anyways, Jesse says don’t be finding no chores to do after all. He don’t want you having no excuse for being tired tomorrow.” And what do you know, Bo was right about that. “He just wants us to give him some peace and quiet for a while.”

“Reckon we could go for a ride,” Bo offers. Even if Daisy came along, there’s nothing like being out on the road to make him forget about how the best summer he’s ever had is coming to an end.

Luke looks at him like there’s a melon growing out of the side of his head.

Daisy ignores them both and starts climbing the ladder to the loft, which would be perfect if only Luke would follow him out to the other barn to get _Tilly_, but instead he follows Daisy up into the loft. Bo tags along behind his older cousins just like he always has and finds himself with the strangest urge to tell Daisy that he’s not really just the kid cousin he used to be, that he’s Luke’s – boyfriend isn’t right, but he’s Luke’s something. Something Daisy hasn’t ever been. 

But since he’s not willing to have her go running back into the house begging Uncle Jesse to whip him, he just follows her over to the loft doors, and sits next to her, legs dangling over the edge. Luke settles on the other side of her and they sit there for a while, talking about the year to come. Bo slips an arm around Daisy, who settles against his shoulder the way she always does.

“You just stay away from Dobro,” Luke is advising her when he snags an arm around her waist, crossing over Bo’s arm that’s already there, and creating a streak of heat like a rash everywhere their skin touches.

As usual, Daisy plans to do the exact opposite of what Luke tells her. “Ain’t nothing wrong with Dobro,” she says and Bo really would have figured on Luke learning something before now. But of all the things Luke is good at – and at the end of this hot, nearly perfect summer, Bo knows a few more things that Luke is good at – he really is no good at girls.

“You ain’t seen him in the locker room,” Luke tells her. Gets a sputtering laugh for his efforts, because Daisy’s not sure what he means by that and probably doesn’t want to know. Bo doesn’t know what Luke’s talking about either, but it’s easier to laugh than to ask. They drift on to other subjects like which teachers they hope they won’t get, and pretty soon, Daisy’s pulling herself up to go back in the house. Something about beauty sleep and how Jesse isn’t really mad at _her_ anyway. Bo reckons she really needs to try on a bunch more outfits and decide what she wants to wear versus what Jesse will let her out of the house in, but he doesn’t care. Daisy’s leaving him and Luke alone up here in the loft. His heart picks up a new rhythm as he watches his girl cousin cross the farmyard in the orange glow of the fading light.

“Not anywheres Jesse and Daisy might see us,” Luke drops in, voice loaded with sarcasm, like he can read Bo’s mind. Which he can, he always can, it’s one of those things he’s good at. 

“It’ll be dark soon. Ain’t neither of them ever been able to see in the dark.”

Luke huffs, like he’s so put upon. “Bo, I reckon it’s been okay that you spent this summer practicing on me for girls. But you’re about to be in high school now, and it’s time you stopped leaning on me and became your own man.”

“I ain’t been practicing on you for girls,” Bo snaps back at him, but Luke dismisses him with as little as a raised hand.

“Whatever. Starting tomorrow, you’re gonna have a whole school of girls to choose from.” Yeah, that part sounds fine. “You’re a Duke after all, and you ain’t gonna have no trouble attracting them.” No, he figures he won’t. He’s plenty pretty and tall for his age, so he reckons there might even be some tenth grade girls interested in him. And he likes girls. He also likes Luke and he doesn’t quite see what one has to do with the other.

“I ain’t been practicing on you,” he repeats.

“You should want girls,” sounds oddly like a command. “Anyways, whatever you been doing, you’re ready for them girls. Some of them ain’t gonna be ready for you, though. Don’t go chasing after a girl that ain’t interested.”

“Be a gentleman,” Bo says, trying to make his voice gruff like Jesse’s. He fails, of course, being neither as old nor as imposing as his uncle. 

Luke doesn’t care. “Else the law will cuff ya and stuff ya,” he offers.

“Khee, khee,” Bo finishes for him, because Luke’s Sheriff Coltrane impression is worse than Bo’s Jesse impression. 

Luke leans back on his elbows and watches the sky darken. Bo sits next to him, arms around his own knees. It’s not how he wants to spend his last free night with Luke, but it’s companionable. Nice, in its own way. Luke never much sat back and watched the stars come out with Mary Pat or any of the other girls he dated. Mostly it was making out, touching, and then goodbye as the girl went one direction and Luke went the other. With Bo. Wherever he has gone, Luke has wanted, or at least tolerated, Bo at his side. If that fact doesn’t quite make Bo happy, at least he is content.

And, at what must be 8:29, because Luke has an internal clock and a will to dance around the outer edges of Jesse’s rules, they climb down the ladder and go inside. They sit with Jesse for a few minutes talking about the school year to come, then head into their room to get ready for bed, because chores come even earlier on school days. After they’ve taken turns brushing their teeth and changing into pajamas, Bo is surprised to feel the warmth of Luke’s hand on his back as he’s pulling back the covers on his bed. He turns to find out what his cousin wants and gets a peck on the lips for his efforts. Before he can ask what happened the rule about nowhere that Jesse and Daisy might see them, Luke has stepped back, funny look on his face like maybe he too is sad that this hot and perfect summer is coming to an end. But Luke’s no good at saying stuff like that.

“Good luck with the girls, Bo,” he says instead. Then he turns away and gets into his own bed.


End file.
